Way back at NAB 2018, Aputure showed off a special secret project they were working on. It was a soft light that had full RGBWW output. That wasn't all, though. It had other cool features that hinted at the future path the company was working on. That light is now out in the form of the Nova P300c, which is now shipping after having its final specs released back in March. And it has a whole host of cool features.

Novap300c_3_0

First off, it's not just RGB, it's RGBWW, which means it has LEDs in two different white colors that should create stronger output for pure white 3200 and 5600 applicants. RGBWW units also tend to have better color reproduction than units that create white light just from the RGB diodes. It's capable of creating a full 90% of the colors in the Rec. 2020 color space, which is a massive spectrum. It has 15 pre-programmed effects and stepless dimming all the way to 0 with no color shift. It can put out up to 800 footcandles at 3 feet.

It's available with a specially designed hard case to make travel easier. It has a dedicated softbox if you want to take the light and make it even softer. Most importantly in terms of accessories, it's fully compatible with the Sidus mesh platform. This allows it to be a node in the overall Bluetooth mesh network for controlling your lighting remotely with the Sidus Link app.

Novap300c_0

There is of course one key feature missing; the color picker. One of the neatest tricks Aputure showed off back in 2018 was a little remote control box that could sample any color and reproduce it with the box. Want to match the sunset happening around you? Use the sampler. There is no hint of that sampler in this release. However, our guess is that because of the effort Aputure is putting into Sidus Link, that feature might someday arrive as an accessory that can work with the whole platform and not just be paired with a single unit. This makes sense since it's a feature some might not use (and thus won't want to bother paying for it), but for those of us who will use it, we'll want to use it with all the links on our lighting plan. Here's hoping we hear more about that soon.

In the meantime, the Nova P300c is shipping now for $1899.

aputurenova P300clighting
Cinematography & Cameras